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Your stomach's churning; you're hyperventilating -- you're in a badly deteriorating conversation at work. Such exchanges, which run the gamut from firing subordinates to parrying verbal attacks from colleagues, are so loaded with anger, confusion, and fear that most people handle them poorly: they avoid them, clamp down, or give in. But dodging issues, appeasing difficult people, and mishandling tough encounters all carry a high price for managers and companies -- in the form of damaged relationships, ruined careers, and intensified problems. In Failure to Communicate, Holly Weeks shows how to master the combat mentality, emotional maelstrom, and confusion that poison difficult conversations. Drawing on her many years as a consultant and coach to leaders and executives, the author explains: · Why we turn to ineffective tactics when the heat is on · How to avoid the worst pitfalls of difficult conversations, and how to pull yourself out if you fall in · Ways to regain your balance and inject respect into stressful conversations, even when you've been confronted, infuriated, or wronged · Strategies for mitigating aggression and defensiveness, and for clearing the fog of misconceptions · How to get through the hardest conversations with your reputation and relationships intact Using proven techniques paired with detailed real-life examples, Weeks equips you with the strategies and practices you need to transform even the toughest conversations.

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Difficult conversations themselves may be complicated, but we can't use a complicated system to bring them into balance. We need a simple system to call on when the conversation heats up and its basis is a three-way respect for yourself, your counterpart, and the conversation itself. The key to good practice is a combination of all three facets of respect working together. This chapter will help you do the work.

This chapter is excerpted from "Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them."

learning objective:

To suggest a formula for creating a system for handling difficult conversations.

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It is the nature of two-level, tough conversations-with communication up top where it's observable, and interpretations with all its flaws concealed below-that we won't see breakdowns in understanding coming. To stop the slide into this breakdown gap, we want a good, balanced strategy that is flexible enough to allow for differences between intentions and perceptions on both sides. This chapter outlines two strategies that will give you the raw material you need to go into a hard talk with a counterpart who is unlikely to see the situation the way you do.

This chapter is excerpted from "Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them."

learning objective:

To provide strategies and tactics for overcoming breakdowns in communication between parties in a difficult conversation.

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When a conversation no longer seems simply hard, but feels threatening, confusing, and unpredictable, it starts to look like combat. When we're caught in a combat mentality, we think there are power rules that determine who will "win" - but they are not rules of nature. Instead of getting caught up in conventional rules about winning and losing, we must focus on strategy and skill. Good strategy is thinking and planning what we want to do and where we want to go in the conversation, while assuming we'll face obstacles.

This chapter is excerpted from "Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them."

learning objective:

To offer advice on how to think strategically about difficult conversations rather than falling pray to acombat mentality.

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Most people think that trust and mutual respect are the two necessary ingredients for good results in difficult conversations. Unfortunately, in hard or even toxic talks, one side often does not bring trust or respect to the conversation. If we put our attention on working toward balance, and bringing self-respect and respect for our counterpart to the conversation, we can unilaterally alter the track of the conversation and increase neutrality.

This chapter is excerpted from "Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them."

learning objective:

To explain why you should aim to act unilaterally in difficult conversations, and show you how to do so.

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Often, each side thinks the trouble in a tough conversation is the other side's fault, cancelling out the blame. Our counterparts use an arsenal of thwarting ploys to get us to back off, to come out on top, or simply to get out of the conversation altogether. On our side, we want to avoid confrontation, but are driven to get tangled in our own emotions, swing from one extreme reaction or another, or stick to one old standby reaction. We can't get through tough conversations if we don't look more closely at what we-and our counterparts-actually do that makes difficult conversations go bad.

This chapter is excerpted from "Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them."

learning objective:

To examine how, and why, each side acts the way they do in a difficult conversation.

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The warfare, troubling emotions, and sheer uncertainty of difficult conversations can do real damage to people and their relationships. However, tough conversations usually fall apart in recognizable ways, and it's important to remember that good strategies and tactics can bring them into balance.

This chapter is excerpted from "Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them."

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In this chapter, the author outlines a variety of ways to handle yourself and your counterpart during tough conversations. Tactics include examining your preferred outcome, taking the middle ground, and using the three-way respect system, among many others. Armed with these strategies, you will develop the skills to make your way through tough conversations in a balanced way, even when they are unpredictable and disruptive emotions are in play.

This chapter is excerpted from "Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them."

learning objective:

To provide an overview of various actions you can take to better handle difficult conversations.

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Difficult conversations stir up crucially disturbing emotions- particularly fear, anger, and embarrassment, which combine to trap us in what the author describes as individual signature emotional states. Our own signature states replay our emotional history, often to our detriment. We can break their grip by understanding our signature states and how they come into play in tough conversations.

This chapter is excerpted from "Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them."

learning objective:

To analyze the toxic emotions that are often present during difficult conversations.

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The worst complication in tough conversations happen - unseen - in the breakdown gap between what one side intends and what the other side perceives. Oversimplifying tough conversations and the delusion of good intentions let us keep our distance from real complications - and then we can't right what was wrong. When both sides stay silent about their thoughts and intentions, confusion, tension, and suspicion mount until respect collapses and we slide into conversational warfare.

This chapter is excerpted from "Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them."

learning objective:

To highlight how the breakdown over misconceptions between parties can lead to the dissolution of difficult conversations.

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